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Bridge to Terabithia on film

You’d be surprised how many people are at a 10 am screening on a Wednesday morning. I was not expecting to be here, but have just this morning realised that if I don’t see Bridge to Terabithia soon it will close. I will lose my chance. So I am in the line too.

A lot of the people around me have won their tickets. On the radio. And isn’t it funny that when you’ve got something for free you’re more pushy than you might otherwise be? It’s all right lady – she is shorter and stouter than me – there’s not that many people here. You’ll get your Harry Potter seat.

I digress. I share my cinema with three other people. A woman probably twice my age. An ex-teacher, I suppose, or perhaps a librarian. And a couple who walk in nearly late. They are in their early twenties, and so I guess she read the book when she was at school and now has dragged him along. It’s what I would have done.

Have you read Bridge to Terabithia? If you’ve read it once, then I’m sure you’ve read it twice. And if you’ve read it twice, I think you should see the film. Quick. It’s closing soon.

Rarely have I enjoyed a film quite this much. I was utterly, completely absorbed. I cried at the very first bird which grew life from the one Jess had drawn. I cried as May Belle ran alongside the race calling out ‘go Jess’. I cried when the music teacher sang. And of course, I cried when…well, you know when. I only had one tissue. It wasn’t enough.

I won’t give it away, just in case you haven’t read it, just in case you’re planning to see it, but this is the type of story that demands to be re-read once you know what happens. As in life, the front of the story becomes more precious once you know the end.

Halfway through, I thought it’s such a pity that my own children are too young yet to come with me. I think he needs another year (or possibly two – he still won’t watch the Pooh movie, so you can see what we’re up against), but one day, he’ll love it, I reckon, my oldest child. And while there are some very good films for children, this will stand the test. It is intelligent and doesn’t patronise. It’s plot and themes are timeless (unfortunately, I suppose): bullying; friendships formed on the outer; a father who doesn’t understand his son. The acting is superb – I mean, just get a look at what that girl does, and yay to the music teacher too. The scenery. Don’t you love the way Aotearoa has become the defining location for stories which dwell on the edge of the imagined and the real?

There was a flaw in the script – the reference to the internet is gratuitous and if it was supposed to date the film, well, it will. And it is true, as they say, that the fantasy elements are the least successful parts of the film. But I thought they were as understated as they were supposed to be, given that in the book, Terabithia was truly a place of the imaginiation. And it was nice to be in a movie that didn’t assault with its special effects.

I’ve got my mother’s copy of Bridge to Terabithia on my desk. There’s her name written in the front. She was a primary school teacher, my mum. Parents who are teachers are crap at teaching their kids anything. Don’t take offence. You know you are – maths, driving, geography – if your parents are teachers you won’t learn it from them. But I watched my mother grow more and more enamoured of this book the more she taught it. It would appeal, I think, to a teacher who is trying to make connections with the children who need it most.

I hope that one of the children she read it to is watching it now and thinking the same thing as me.

Bridge to Terabithia. Five stars.

liveblogging the cleaning of the kettle

Having roughly scrubbed at the bottom with daggy dish-cleaning thingo, think to self ‘well, it’s not as-new, but as promised it is greatly improved, yep that’ll do it’, then step back and notice what you have done to the previously spotless external surface of your boiling apparatus.

And have you noticed? A story arc I didn’t have to impose on my characters? Like, it just appeared in this last post all of it’s own accord. How cool is that?

Liveblogging the internal cleaning of my kettle: stage two, add the bicarbonate of soda

Stage two: the best bit.

Add copious amounts of bicarbonate of soda (as per instructions from SQ in that other post down there).

This isn’t really it at its most dramatic, but I’ve also got a banana cake in the oven, and the youngest child trying to get me to his performance of La Bamba in the other part of the room.

Back soon.

Liveblogging the internal cleaning of my kettle

Stage one
Fill kettle before boiling.

Here you see the contrast between the inside and outside of my kettle.

My gorgeous mother-in-law made our kitchen smile while I was in Tasmania – the kettle, dishwasher and stove sparkle like they have never sparkled before.

Better go…the kettle has stopped boiling. Stay tuned for stage two.